Living a soul-hearted life takes expanding our conscious awareness. Conscious awareness is our intuitive ability to tune in to information that provides us with a broader more enlightened perspective. It’s experiencing and connecting to our own energies and the energies around us especially our divine source. Such heightened awareness bypasses logical thinking and sources through our hearts. Through conscious awareness, we see, sense, and feel what resonates with our soul’s journey.
By expanding your conscious awareness, you access a greater wealth of information to support your spiritual growth and well-being. In doing so, you shift from viewing things simply in physical terms to seeing why things happen from a spiritual perspective. From this spiritual perspective, we become aware of hunches, gut feelings, intuitions, multisensory perceptions, or divine synchronicities so we can make better choices for a more fulfilling life.
The secret to expanding our conscious awareness is to free ourselves from the ego-the voice inside our brain. In this awakened state, we feel connected to a flowing, loving, intelligent energy source through our hearts. We realize that although we are in a physical body, we are actually intersecting divine energy fields, each one formless, vibrating, and containing all information in the universe. This heightened perception of our divine being gives rise to our authentic power and strengthens our sense of connection with others and the universe.
Have you ever experienced an “aha” moment or a moment of sudden clarity when everything comes into focus as if through a camera lens? This is using conscious awareness which assists you in noticing information that comes from spirit. And through such awareness, you open yourself to the spiritual information flowing through you as if you had pushed the buttons on a radio. This invites your spirit to guide you in ways that benefit yourself and others.
In the same way a GPS gives you driving directions so you can travel without getting lost, your heart is the thruway used by spirit to guide you on our soul’s path. It’s because the heart’s energy transmissions bypass the brain that you receive spiritual information through the heart center to guide you. You have the ability to receive such information, whether it’s a gut feeling, an intuition, or an inner knowing. However, you must open your heart to be able to sense and use such information for your benefit. Put simply, you must follow your heart, and then use your head.
Conscious awareness requires being present and mindful —consistently being open to receiving spiritual information, and deliberately raising your vibration, especially during rough times. We continually scan and absorb information through a dynamic, multisensory system. As we become more open, our multisensory perceptions become clearer and we become more receptive to spiritual clues. For example, we may feel a rush of energy that makes our hair stand on end, gives us goose bumps, causes us to feel a tingling or buzzing sensation, or simply a warming or subtle tension in parts of our body. We may have even said, “I can feel it in my bones,” or “The answer is right on the tip of my tongue.”
While working with clients, I often intuit information in the form of physical sensations, intuitive feelings, and heightened visual perceptions. Sometimes I sense what they were just thinking or about to say. Often I feel a rush of energy through my body creating “god-bumps,” (as I like to call them) which affirms the spiritual information coming through me. Tapping into such spiritual information allows me to guide these transformative sessions for each client’s greater good and well-being.
Like a spiritual compass, conscious awareness assists us in navigating the events in our lives. Using it can feel like flying in an airplane and viewing the ground below. As such, it allows us to step outside of whatever is happening in our lives so we can assess the situation with healthy detachment. Every experience we have, no matter what it is—a surly driver who cuts us off in traffic, the unexpected loss of a close relationship, or an illness—can be viewed as an opportunity to transform ourselves. From this inspired vantage point, we can experience the space of all possibilities without being attached to a particular outcome.
In Anatomy of the Spirit, medical intuitive Carolyn Myss defines this type of enlightened state as “symbolic sight, the ability to use your intuition to interpret the power symbols in your life.” For instance, suppose you are driving to meet your father, concerned about the encounter, then see a sign that reads, “Fathers matter.” Or perhaps you have strong desire to call a friend whom you have not seen in a while, and suddenly your friend phones you or you run into her at the grocery store. Or, you may be pondering a problem and out of the blue an enlightened solution to it pops into your mind.
Here are a few ways to expand your conscious awareness:
- Sit in a quiet place; enter a trancelike state through breathing, prayer, or meditation; open your heart by touching it, breathing through it, or saying, “Open my heart”; then listen to your spirit speaking to you, asking it questions if desired. With practice, you will discern the voice of your spirit through physical sensations, an image that pops into your mind; a message from out of the blue; or a particular feeling.
- Become a conscious observer of your thoughts and feelings as they come through your awareness. Instead of reacting to your negative thoughts, merely witness them like a cloud passing through your mind with self-acceptance and without judgment. Notice any negative thoughts. Replace them with positive affirmations such as “I am light,” “I am love,” “I am kind,” or “I am whole.” Use these positive mantras throughout the day.
- Maintain a reflective or meditative attitude as you move through your day. Pay attention to moments of sudden clarity and synchronicities that occur when you least expect them. Write them down in a journal or notebook to review at the end of the each day.
- Acknowledge the things that seem to happen for a reason. Recognize the circumstances without judging them as good or bad. And perceive every interaction or condition as an opportunity for personal transformation.
- Notice when you feel uncomfortable, restless, or irritable. These are cues that there are emotions just below the surface of your conscious awareness that need to be released. When any person or situation triggers such emotions, bless them for bringing this unhealed part of yourself into your awareness. Then sit with and release whatever pain surfaced so it doesn’t become a stuck place or an energy block.
- Discover the wonder in the simplest experiences—a rainbow, a child’s smile, a favorite piece of music, or a loved one’s warm embrace. Close your eyes and envision a favorite image, such as a sunset or a loved one.
Expanding our conscious awareness awakens us to our authentic selves. Seeing ourselves through the eyes of our hearts, we acknowledge that we are love, and therefore whole and complete. When we align our thoughts, words, and choices with this high vibrational energy, we live consciously aware and experience the world through this lens. We appreciate life in all its magnificence without judgment or fear. We live a soul-hearted life.
